Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.

Crossing Over, and Over

“My wife, my son — I have to get back to them,” Daniel kept telling himself, from the moment he was arrested in Seattle for driving with an expired license, all the way through the deportation proceeding that delivered him to Mexico in June.

Nothing would deter him from crossing the border again. He had left his hometown at 24, he said. Twelve years later, he spoke nearly fluent English and had an American son, a wife and three brothers in the United States. “I’ll keep trying,” he said, “until I’ll get there.”

This is increasingly the profile of illegal immigration today. Migrant shelters along the Mexican border are filled not with newcomers looking for a better life, but with seasoned crossers: older men and women, often deportees, braving ever-greater risks to get back to their families in the United States — the country they consider home.